


The Fire Treasure

by sapoeysap



Series: thieves, counts and bloggers [2]
Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Buzz Feed exists, Cats, Count AU, Introspection, M/M, Mention of Unsolved, Mention of other Worth It people, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Thief AU, ideal world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 07:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16237277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/pseuds/sapoeysap
Summary: Inheritance normally means getting a little chunk of money to save for a rainy day, Inheritance for Andrew is slightly different.Andrew broods, Steven is a ray of light, Adam works late.It all works out.





	The Fire Treasure

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [thieves are in the shadow's, all's right in the world](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16142129) by [sapoeysap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/pseuds/sapoeysap). 



> This is the backstory of how Andrew came to be a Count in my Unsolved story.
> 
> This can be read without reading that, all you need to know is that Shane doesn't work for BuzzFeed and is instead a world famous thief, Unsolved is instead a show about Shane's crimes, still hosted by Ryan. 
> 
> This is a made up world, being a Count probably does not entail these things.

Inheritance normally snags you some money at best, maybe some shitty junk that no one wanted or if you’re lucky some great family heirloom. Andrew’s inheritance made him into a Count.

It wasn’t part of his life plan to become a Count, some part of his distant Eastern-European heritage he had forgotten about, until a letter had arrived, saying his Uncle had passed and since said Uncle had no children, the title of Count would be passed on to Andrew.

Which would have been incredible, but again, he hadn’t really planned for this.

So, Andrew found himself in the weird position of being in his early-late twenties, making a well known You Tube series with two of his best friends and suddenly finding out that he was a Count. In a letter.

There was hesitation on his part, to move to some country and a life that he had only ever experienced on family holidays, as a kid he had understood abstractly that his family was semi-important in the country they came from, that the home he holidayed in every year was very different than the places other kids took vacation at back in America.

Then there was the fact he would have to tell his two best friends. That he was leaving them and the show they had built up from the ground, to go live an isolated life in a country he has polaroid picture memories off. A country he doesn’t speak the native language off, apart from the basics, hello, goodbye etc. and dodgy jokes that were passed down by his parents. 

The letter has been burning a figurative hole in his pocket and what feels like a physical hole in his heart for the past week. Time ticking down before he must fly away and either turn down or agree to something that will change his life entirely. His minds made up the moment he reads the letter, sat on the floor in the apartment. If he doesn’t take the title of Count Ilnyckyj, it will disappear from the family forever, he would hate to lose that lineage. Nevermind the fact that it all sounds fanciful, to be a count, almost like a fairy-tale dream. The cynical in him knows it will be nothing like that, that it will be him in a house too large with nothing but staff and cats for company. He buys the plane tickets the next night, orders some packing boxes and writes his resignation letter, with the caveat that none of the higher ups mention it to anyone in the office.

It’s hard to spend the following week leading up to the flight, in the way he does. It’s like a double life, packing at home but going into work every day, being confronted with the brightness of Steven and the mellowness of Adam. It hurts, like a constant piercing in his chest and he feels almost always short of breath, like every breath he takes will be his last in this air, in this space he has carved for himself in the ideal bubble of Worth It. He’s an absolute chicken, to not tell Steven or Adam. To instead waste the time attempting to memorise everything about this life he is to leave behind. The feel of these friendships, the laughter that’s trapped into Steven’s car, in the cameras mounted on the dashboard, the smell of the air freshener that Steven picks out each week. Adam’s face, from behind the camera set up in the noise of whatever restaurant they’ve sat down in, the way Adam leans in to try a bite, or hands over the second camera so one of them can hold it while Adam sits down to try the food.

His phone is in hand nearly all the time when they are not filming, just to take photographs of everything, Adam’s face cracking into a smile at a good joke, blurry snaps of Steven’s hair. The way the sun sets over the smog, the streets he spends every day walking down. Stray cats, random rooms of the office. Steven and Adam don’t stop mocking him for it, so unlike him to have his phone in hand 24/7, even their co-worker Ryan gets in on the ribbing, until Steven tells him to go make more PowerPoints on the stupid thieves.

The hardest thing was trying to tie up loose ends, little things like jokes that had maybe gone too far, forgotten bets off insignificant amounts, broken items. Even went so far as to message ex’s, too add extra plasters onto already mended hearts. He hid the pain in smiles and puns, those that looked at him strangely for trying to repay silly debts, but it didn’t matter because soon he will be gone from L.A, and just a memory to be replayed on You Tube. He organises extra shoots for Worth It and the other two don’t question, just presume he really wants to get loads done, he keeps the real reason, that these episodes will be the last, buried deep. Hidden away in the sound of forks clashing in a silly imitation of a cheers.

What hurt, more than the knowledge that was a coward for upping sticks and running away without telling anyone. Was the knowledge that he was a coward for not telling Steven and Adam that he loves them, in more than the way of close friends, truly truly loves them, heartachingly so. Cruel twist of the fate that just the day before the letter came, he had convinced himself that he would finally sit down and tell them both the way he felt. Let the world unfold around him and just pray that they would return the feeling, that his interpretation of the glances and the touches they gave him were not incorrect. That they did love him back. Then the letter had come, and it seemed pointless, like it would cause more pain to tell them his feelings and then disappear and, in a haze, aided by whiskey, after he had ordered the packing boxes and written his resignation, he had convinced himself it was unlikely they loved him back the way he wanted them too.

When the night before his flight arrived, as you know, the sun rises and falls and time moves on, no matter how hard he tries to stop it. Andrew wrote three letters, one for Steven, one for Adam, and one addressed to both. Snuck into the office close to closing hours, praying that Adam had gone home and wasn’t still pulling a late-night editing run. Adam’s desk was empty, Macbook still on the desk, cable attached to the larger Mac screen, but no sign of his jacket. So, he put the letters down on Steven and Adam’s desks, and the shared one on what was his desk.Taking a box out and packing all the stray items on his desk, that he couldn't sneak away during work hours without raising suspicion. He knows he's a coward to sneak away, to trick his mind that the world would keep spinning without him, that Adam and Steven would be okay, Steven’s charisma could encourage someone else to take Andrew’s place on Worth It probably very quickly and pretend that thought didn’t sting at all.

He takes one last look at the office, at his now empty desk, the way the office looks different, eerier in the combination of fading light from outdoors and the motion activated overhead lights. He wants to ignore the tear that works its way down his face, but its hard to taste that salt in his mouth. Tears are meant to be so clean, but the way he is leaving everything behind feels so wrong and unclean. The lights go out quickly behind him as he exits and waits for the uber, he chalks the lights that go on in the office behind him down to the cleaners coming in.

What Andrew doesn’t know, is its Adam, crawling back into the office to finish up some editing, after picking up some take-away and visiting the toilets. Andrew remains oblivious to the world pulling a cruel trick on them, making them miss each other in the hallways, by mere moments. Andrew remains oblivious as he and his uber have long left the car park by the time Adam opens the letter.

That’s why it comes as such a shock, to walk into the airport the next day, sit down in the terminals Starbucks, and have his cramped little table be infested by Adam and Steven. He knows he probably looks how he feels, like his heart is absolutely crushed, everything that he's been trying to bury down in the past week is coming to the surface at the thought of the flight he will board in an hour and a half. The kind of crushing of his heart, that instead of even attempting to pull a smile at the sight of the other two men, his face just twists and crumples further into gloominess. Except Steven and Adam, instead of looking broken hearted or pissed off, have comforting smiles on there faces, warm happy smiles. Everything goes through his mind, the fact that they must have found the letters, read them and know how in love he is with both of them. Know that they know he is leaving L.A behind, knowing he is a coward who did everything via letter. How much it hurts that neither of them look crushed, the smiles on there faces must mean they are happy to see the back of him, he thought Steven at least would be visibly hurting.

Adam’s placing a warm hand on his forearm which pulls him out of the spiral his brain has sent him into. Making him look properly, consider the fact that the two men opposite him, in the Starbuck’s that’s in the airport lounge, would need tickets to be in this area of the terminal. Tickets that are on the table in front of them, next to the distinctive Starbucks disposable cups. Tickets that go to the same destination as Andrew. Tickets for the same flight, which is just a damning inditement to how few people want to fly to the country Andrew’s about to come a Count of, that they can book tickets so late in the day and still get the same flight. Something Steven reminds him off almost immediately.

‘Hey Count Ilnyckyj’, to which Steven receives a well-deserved light hit on the arm from Adam.

Adam, whose whole schtick is being a man of few words, has apparently decided its time to go for a full-on Silent Bob monologue.

‘Ignore Steven. Andrew, you’re a dumbass. Did you even think about what you were doing? Did you really think we wouldn’t care, that you were leaving? That we thought you were replaceable.’ Steven’s just nodding, eyes crinkling against his smile as Adam continues. ‘Andrew honestly, you are part of us, bigger than Worth It alright, so here we are. Bags packed super late and in a rush. You should be grateful that your plan to go on so many shoots this week backfired on you because I can’t resist editing. That I found your stupid letter, which frankly is your most blockheaded move ever. So here we are, and you Count Ilnyckyj, have two new boyfriends. If you’ll have us.’

Adam’s eyes are imploring, expressive behind the frames of his glasses, mouth quirked into a smile half hidden in his beard, hand still warm on Andrew’s arm.

Andrew, whose blinking back tears, who feel’s more than see’s Steven’s hand take his.

‘No one’s called me blockhead since eighth grade’

Steven’s laugh is the purest thing he’s ever heard. ‘What, they call you hot honey instead?’

It’s this moment, that feels unbreakable. Impenetrable to anyone else, even amongst the bustle of the Starbucks around them. As Steven gently takes both Adam’s and Andrew’s hand, and they all laugh. All that remains of Andrew’s tears by the time the three of them board the flight, is a faint tear track, unnoticeable to anyone.

 

Adam and Steven sit at the back of the weird coronation ceremony, that marks Andrew as the next Count of the Ilnyckyj lineage. The Ilnyckyj mansion is beautiful though, at the top of a hill, with a mountain scape behind it. It’s not extravagantly fancy, more understated. But the staff are nothing if not polite and help aid the three men in settling in, encouraged by there sheer enthusiasm and willingness to engage with the local culture, something Worth It has taught them how to do well. And when the coronation is done, and Andrew is officially Count Ilnyckyj, there’s a dinner held in his honour, nobles from all around are in attendance, Dignitaries from multiple countries. Splendid food, everyone seems delighted with the reactions of the new Count, Steven and Adam. Especially Steven’s joyous shriek when caviar is brought out. Phones have been banned, and while there is an official photographer, Adam can’t help but comment on how much he misses his own camera and sound gear, which are locked safely in the bedroom they have been sharing. It feels wrong to be trying such a cornucopia of food, but not filming it. 

As the night wears on, after the dinner but before the wine reception Adam finds Steven and Andrew, who disappeared from the table a few minutes prior, in one of the more resplendent bathrooms, shaking from anxiety and bordering on panic attacks. Steven sent there by a flare up of his normal anxieties, Andrew just outright overwhelmed.  Adam calms them down, in a way only he can, more quiet words and touches, plants a kiss on each cheek, holds both their hands as he leads them back into the dining room. No one makes a comment even as the three of them increase contact, from gentle nudges to all out hand holding.

No one say’s anything either when after the new Count makes a toast, him and his fellow American companions, creep away from everyone, abandoning their glasses of wine on the table. And head upstairs to host their own celebration up in the bedroom.

They come to a decision that night, lying sweaty on top of the covers, wrapped in each other’s arms. That they will continue Worth It, tell the world about Andrew’s new position, the changes in their life. The decision to come public with their relationship is decided easy with little protest amogsnt them, if they are going to be so open about everything else, they should own up to being together. The next morning Andrew goes down to the kitchens, finds the head chef and requests certain meals from the night before that the three of them had listed in bed that morning over coffee.

They film an explanation video, sat on a table they set up on a balcony, view of the Mountain scape behind the mansion. It’s like any other shoot, except without the build up of sitting in the car, or the ‘three different foods and three different price points spiel’. Just Andrew and Steven in front of the camera, eating foods that they explain they tried at the new Count of Ilnyckyj’s introductory banquet. That they will still do Worth It, and then Steven drops the proverbial bombshell. ‘Oh and even though we didn’t do a proper episode today, this is a unanimous Worthage-a-trois decision, because we are all dating. So say hello to my boyfriends, Count Ilnyckyj and Adam.’ Adam appears from behind the camera, pleased smile on his face, as he snags the biggest bit of chicken from Andrew’s plate.

The video is well received, the audience go crazy for it, fan theories coming true that they are dating. They gain more viewers when they thought they would lose them. It’s jubilant. And then Steven comes up with his most hairbrained plot, even crazier than starting Worth-It in the first place. Frankly Adam and Andrew should have been concerned when Steven starts a sentence with ‘Hear me out’, and then all off a sudden there creating their own restaurant chain. Based on the idea that you try three different foods from three different cultures. A mix and match style. The three of them fly back to L.A, to sort affairs out. Steven moves out of his apartment and they all move into Adam’s bigger apartment. All Adam does really, is buy a bigger bed to fit all three of them.

Andrew grovels for his job back, and since the explanation video was such a hit, and he’s part of the Worth It team whoes video views are raking in money, he gets it back with little actual grovel. They plan and scheme for a week, going between the office and their apartment.

And when the first restaurant opens in L.A, it’s a hit, enough that they open two more straight off the back off it. They go between there L.A. flat, and the mansion in the mountainside. Andrew finds a stray cat, or three. And while the staff at the mansion keep the cats well fed and looked after, Andrew finds he needs to constantly visit them. Steven finds that his Instagram grid suits Andrew and his cats, Adam just finds it adorable.

A year later, they’ve made enough money to buy a reasonably sized villa out in L.A.

All three of them decorate it to their tastes, and somehow Andrew ends up with cats in the villa as well, two little tripod cats that Adam brought as a housewarming gift. The have a house warming party, in which what feels like the whole office attends. Ryan tears the shit out of the three of them, Zach threatens to kidnap one of the cats. It’s great. There all pleasantly buzzed, and its nice to just be out and themselves in front of everyone. And to hear the knowing laughs when they try and sneak off early, and Annie points out that they can’t do that because there’s no staff here to clean up after everyone’s left. Adam turns beet red at that.

A year after they buy the villa, they get married. It’s a small ceremony, held in the Ilnyckyj mansion. Andrew wears this red regal suit, dictated by the country’s customs. Adam in dark blue, Steven in light grey, standing out against Andrew. They fly there favourites over from the office, let Annie and Rie walk Steven and Adam down the aisle respectively. Ryan acts as best man and doesn’t act up for it. It looks incredible, in the video that they post, something to regal and extravagant, but not really, because its so small. Out in the garden, lit by fairy lights, Steven even manages to get flowers in Adam’s beard. The night feels magical. The headlines that have spurred their relationship in ignorance, don’t matter, because the three of them have carved out this perfect space for themselves.

That night, in the bedroom, as Adam pushes into Andrew, whose lying in Steven’s arms, he whispers that he was glad. ‘Glad for what?’ and for a second Andrew is confused, when Adam replies ‘Glad you were a coward’. And then it all clicks into a place, lying between Steven and Adam. That stupid week where he had all but resigned himself to saying goodbye to this. He tries to reply, ‘Glad I was a coward too’, but its lost in moans as Steven grips him and brings him to the edge.

The next day, Adam and Andrew disappear for a few hours, Steven dipping in and out of sleep, exhausted from the day before, and round two or three they went for that morning. And when he rouses and finds a Van Gough Sunflower hung on the wall opposite the bed and two very pleased husbands standing next to it, each of them with a cat in their arms, Steven can’t help but drag them both back into bed for a nice and healthy round four, after they’ve locked the cats out off course.

 

The three of them, the remaining guests and the Van Gough fly back out to L.A the day after.

Andrew spends the flight writing a long letter. A letter that mirrors the one he addressed to Adam and Steven a few years prior, but instead of expressing regret over what could have been if he was not a coward, the letter spoke of gratitude that everything had happened in the interim. It ends with a P.S.

_By the way, Adam Bianchi Ilnyckyj, I still can’t believe you work overtime to edit videos and it’s a bad habit Steven and I both want you to stop. But I can’t complain that much, after all, it led us to this._

When the calling card from Shane M. comes through 7 months after the wedding, saying he will steal the Van Gough, the three of them put up a what is frankly a laughably poor amount of guards, invite Ryan over, so he can maybe finally get footage of the elusive master thief he is basically in love with. And they spend the night in the kitchen and try and mostly fail at making macaroons. Afterall, the sunflower painting was beautiful while they had it, but the important thing is they have each other. Though the scream of anguish Andrew lets out when he sees Shane M. has stolen his favourite vintage wine, might suggest differently to the ‘we have each other’ theory, until Adam goes out and replaces it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I think I write better like this i'm probably pushing myself with the main AU.  
> Since this is technically a Lupin iii AU still, the title comes from the main theme from Lupin iii: Castle of Cagliostro
> 
> Apologies for the gratuitous film references, I apparently think im Pete Wentz  
>    
> (is it wise for someone whose just gotten out of a polyamourous relationship to be writing polyam...ehhh)


End file.
